


Intervention

by shakespeareaddict



Category: Almost Human
Genre: But he won't admit it, John is Pining, M/M, this was mostly meant to be silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:52:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareaddict/pseuds/shakespeareaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John definitely isn't in love with Dorian. Not at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt, the original post (which is exactly the same as this one) can be found here: http://shakespeareaddict.tumblr.com/post/69817412822/ahh-prompt-okay-jorian-based-on-the-song-i-wont-say#note-container

"John, a word?"

John looked up from his desk and met Maldonado’s eyes across the bullpen. The stern woman gave nothing concrete away, though he was sure that the peculiar glance she shot Dorian meant something. It might as well have been a cookbook in Greek for all the good it did John.

It must’ve meant something to Dorian (who could probably do plenty with a Greek cookbook, so  _of course_  he’d understand the look as well), who turned his head a bit to face John and smiled. “Just you, man.”

Suddenly more concerned than if Maldonado had called them both over, John carefully stood up. Immediately the captain turned and walked into a conference room with grayed windows, the detective following warily.

Maldonado, however, was not the only one inside. Waiting for him, clustered around the far end of the table, stood Valerie and Rudy as well as their captain. All three wore inscrutable expressions; Rudy wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Valerie was tapping nervously on the edge of the nearest chair.

Valerie, nervous? John nearly burst into sweat then and there.

"What’s this about?" he asked, keeping his voice steady by sheer force of will. He already had an idea, though—Maldonado hadn’t asked him to get Dorian, and there were only so many conversations they could be having with the department’s tech expert/genius without Dorian present.

"John," Valerie started, then stopped, apparently tossing aside whatever approach she’d been considering. She adjusted her stance by increments, and suddenly wasn’t the slightly twitchy stranger he’d seen when coming in, but her usual self—kind but blunt when necessary. "It’s about you and Dorian."

He had to actually clear his throat to get the next words out evenly (and, really? He’d thought he left cracking voices behind by about twenty years). “What about us?”

"Well, really it’s about you." John’s breath left him in an audible  _whoosh_ of relief, right before he heard Valerie continue with, “And how you apparently don’t realize you’re in love with Dorian.”

Wait.

What?

"You’re kidding."

Rudy finally risked looking at him in the eye, before half-ducking his head again. “Well, it’s not like there’s not…ah,  _precedent_ …for this…sort of thing….”

John rolled his eyes. “I’m not some country virgin fainting over the first sexbot I ever met,” he said, biting off his words sharply. They had the desired effect; Rudy’s eyes widened and he tried to back-track quickly.

"No, that’s not what I meant! I never meant to imply—well—"

"It’s the way you look at him when you think he’s not looking," Valerie said, jumping to Rudy’s aid. She clarified, "Like he’s the only one in the room."

"Or the lab," Rudy added helpfully.

"Or on the crime scene."

"Or—"

"Okay, now you’re just yanking my chain. And I don’t look at him like that!" he insisted, because he didn’t. Really. Sometimes Dorian just did something unexpected, and John liked to keep an eye on him—what kind of a partner would he be if every trick Dorian pulled out of his endless bag of them surprised him, too? A shit one. So it was perfectly natural to watch Dorian a bit more often than he watched, say, Paul. Perfectly natural.

All the best cops did it.

Yeah.

"Fine, what about your bickering?" Valerie challenged. "You guys are worse than my parents."

"We have  _arguments_ , over serious things, we don’t squabble about—the curtains—”

Valerie raised an incredulous eyebrow at that. It reminded him of this one character on a decades-old sci-fi show his mom had liked—the guy could shut people up with the force of his eyebrow alone. “You’re sure about that?”

John groaned, thoroughly fed up with all this bullshit. “That was one time, and it was the  _victims_ ' curtains! You know what I mean anyway!”

"Oh, I know what you mean. I’m just wondering if you know."

"Okay, that doesn’t even make sense."

Rudy finally jumped in again. “You do realize, when I said earlier that there was a, ah, precedent, I meant, within the DRN program. There are cases of partners who, um, well, had, not-exactly sanctioned relationships….”

John stood there, numb with shock, for several minutes.

"Come again?"

Rudy fidgeted a bit more, hemming and hawing before finally declaring, “They’re meant to be as human as possible, right? Well, what’s more human than love?”

 _Stupidity,_ John thought, because he, in love with Dorian—please.

Though the idea of Dorian in love with someone else—it made the whole “huge package” thing slightly less inexplicable. But there was something about that idea that made him feel highly uncomfortable. Probably had something to do with the “huge package” thing again.

Right.

But they were all missing something pretty big.

"You guys do realize that I don’t do that—the whole love thing—anymore, right? I mean, I’ve been turned off from guys for a while now…" and that was not a story he wanted to get into "…and after…Anna…uh, ‘disappeared’," he shot a meaningful look at the silent form of Maldonado, leaning on the wall like some spectator at a circus, "well, I just—I don’t, anymore. So. I can’t be in love with Dorian, you know?"

Valerie and Rudy both opened up their mouths, but Maldonado held out her hand and spoke first. “You’re absolutely right, John. But, should Dorian ever develop feelings of his own—for  _anyone_ at all—he’s free to act on it, so long as he’s discreet. I’d even go so far as to say I  _encourage_ him to do so.”

John, doing his level best to ignore what he caught of Valerie’s and Rudy’s expressions out of the corner of his eye, nodded smartly. “I’ll be sure to let him know, sir.” Then he got the hell out before the other two could say anything else absurd and accuse him of writing songs about the bot, or angsty poems or something.

Before he reentered the bullpen, John stopped and took a look at the activity below him. There was Paul, making an ass of himself in the center of the floor in front of the three newbies, and there was Dorian, shaking his head at the other detective. For a moment John let himself look, and to wonder; then he stepped back down and got back to work.


End file.
